The Key Benefits of Juicing

Is anyone really eating the right amount of fruits and vegetables? According to the Dietary Guidelines 2015–2020, adults should eat 3 to 4 servings of vegetables, and 2 to 2.5 servings of fruit a day. The majority are not. Is juicing the answer? Well, the Mayo Clinic says there’s no sound scientific evidence that extracted juices are healthier than those you get by eating the fruit or vegetable itself. But if you’re not eating enough, a glass of fresh, nutrient-dense juice sure beats a can of empty-calorie soda. So, what are the benefits of juicing?

Juicing helps meet nutritional needs. It’s a fun and efficient way to add fresh fruits and veggies to your diet to get your daily dose of nutrients. Try varieties you usually don’t eat, and experiment to find your favorite combination. (Drink fresh-squeezed juice right away, as it can develop harmful bacteria.) Juicing gives you live, raw food, with vitamins and minerals in a form that’s quickly assimilated into the body. Get started with the juicer (choose from three kinds) you prefer.

Juicing promotes variety. Juicing isn’t about finding the perfect superfood or everything you need in a single glass. Rather, it’s about enhancing, not replacing a complete diet. Rotating the types of food for variety captures the many vitamins and minerals they afford, and juicing makes this a breeze. The possibilities for both flavor and nutrition are endless. Drink more veggies than fruits, though, as fruit is high in sugar that might cause an insulin spike; use pesticide-free produce; and choose organic when available.

You absorb all of the nutrients. Foods aren’t as nutritious as they once were, thanks to all the GMOs, pesticides, herbicides and depleted soil from commercial farming. Increases in sugar intake don’t help either. Over time, these food choices have even impaired the ability to properly digest raw, fresh foods and absorb their micronutrients, phytochemicals and enzymes. That’s where supplementing the diet with juicing comes in.

Fresh juices allow you to absorb all the nutrients, including a plant’s phytochemicals — compounds with antioxidant, antibacterial and enzyme-stimulation effects that prevent diseases like cancer — and enzymes, essential for digestion, absorption of food, and energy. You can retain a plant’s fiber content in juice by using a blender-type machine that blends all the edible parts of a fruit or vegetable, rather than just extracting its juice.